


Day 18 - Way Down We Go

by torigingerfox



Series: Sounds Good Enough [18]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Closing Statement, Courtroom, F/M, trial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 13:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12912690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torigingerfox/pseuds/torigingerfox
Summary: Draco's closing statement to the Wizengamot's Judge and Jury.





	Day 18 - Way Down We Go

**Author's Note:**

> Day 18
> 
> Song: Way Down We Go - Kaleo
> 
> Rating: T

 

"Glancing distractedly at our reflection in the mirror: how many times a day do we do that? Staring at our own eyes and face until we no longer recognise our own features, while we ask ourselves if other people see the same thing we do when they stare at us.

After all that happened, after the fear, the hate, the hopelessness...after all I went through, who am I? The boy full of hate and prejudice? The boy who'd judge a book by its cover? Or the boy who learnt the hard way that playing an adult's game isn't cool or badass, just downright terrifying? Am I the boy who attempted murder, even if half-heartedly? Am I the one who sat at that Merlin-damned table and witnessed torture after torture, murder after murder, without doing a single thing, but knowing that all that shit was wrong?

Or maybe I'm the one who lowered his wand even if in that moment I knew it would mean signing my death warrant? Maybe I'm being too hard on myself and in the end I'm the boy who refused to identify my old schoolmates, even if they were supposed to be my enemies, because I knew their life might depend on  _me_.

The truth is, I don't know who I am. I feel like I am  _one, no one and a hundred thousand._

Just like that Italian writer said.

The truth is, I will never be able to just be  _one_. Reality isn't objective. Reality changes according to who's perceiving it.

So I end up being  _no one._ I get lost in the different versions of Draco Malfoy in which each time I have to transform in order to survive. In order to deal with the people in my life. And this is exactly when reality stops being objective and becomes completely and utterly subjective. Our entire existences are subjective.

The truth is, we are slaves. Slaves to the others, but most of all slaves to ourselves.

This way, we will never be free, because we are used to being so many different versions of ourselves, that more often than not we forget who we  _really_ are. If we ever were someone.

Maybe what makes us  _us_ is the sum of all those different versions of ourselves, so we inevitably end up being  _no one._

If other people weren't so judgmental, maybe...we could be free from all rules and conventions. From all impositions, and we could be whole again.

But, in the end, I came to the conclusion that, no matter what happens,  _no one,_ not even you, has the right to tell me whether I am a Man or not. Whether I have the right to walk holding my head high.

And most importantly, whether I have the right to be at peace with my conscience.

After all this time spent locked up in a cell with only a pit and a mirror as company (and I never quite got why the mirror was there in the first place) I still can't accept the concept of Good and Evil. Nothing is black or white. The world is made of thousands different shades, for Salazar's sake!

Maybe it's because they do not exist.

What surely exist, though, are the Actions and Reactions. Forces always come in pairs, after all. Equal and opposite action-reaction force pairs.

And it's not about religions, injustices or luck. All our lives are governed by the most intuitive of all the laws of Physics.

What I do today, will cause a reaction tomorrow.

As simple as that.

The fucking Dark Lord, please forgive my language, was right about one thing: there is no Good and Evil.

There are only choices. Right choices, wrong choices. Brave or coward. Bad or good. Choices and the responsibility that derives from them.

A responsibility we must take, a responsibility we can't off-load onto somebody else.

I firmly believe that the past shouldn't be forgotten; that mistakes shouldn't be excused. But I also came to the conclusion that living a life of remorse and guilt won't change the wrongs I did in the past, it would only keep me chained to something that's gone. Learning from my mistakes and accepting my faults, though, has helped me becoming someone else. Maybe even someone better, someone stronger.

A person in this very room, dear judge and jury, once told me that we are the key to our own happiness. A person in this very room taught me to accept who I am, who I have been, and who I will never be able to become. Because acceptance is the key to understanding. And understanding is the key to change. To become  _someone_.

Someone who can stare at his own reflection and see nothing more than a boy, who's made mistakes, whose actions caused pain, suffering and death, but whose reactions fought against his very core, his very being, his own blood.

I don't know if today I will walk out of this courtroom as a free man, and I'm not even sure I care.

What I do know is that thanks to Hermione Granger I finally know who I would like to become, and I could spend the rest of my life in a cell, but she made me free. With her selfless love, and her wonderful soul. She taught me that  _I_ am the one with the power of forgiving myself.

We truly are the key to our own happiness. Always, and forever."

THE END

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The Italian writer Draco is referring to is Luigi Pirandello, and the work quoted is One, no one and one hundred thousand (Uno, nessuno e centomila)


End file.
